In Parachutes, your goal is to perform one of the roles in an combined effort to form a figure with a group of fellow parachuters during your free fall. Your goal is to get into position, connect, and disband without causing a disaster (like failing to come into position and connect, disband orderly, and open the parachute in time and safely.

After each new figure, a new, more complicated one will be unlocked, with more fellows, lower altitude (lesser time), windy conditions and difficult locations like rock walls etc.

This is a game about fashion design which we were thinking about years ago with a little friend of mine who dreamt in those days that she’ll be a fashion designer when she grew up one day… Here comes…

Game Idea #40

Catwalk

In Catwalk you are a fashion designer that must create new pieces four times during a year, to show off at the important seasonal fashion shows. You are deciding the style and color, the hair and make-up style, the accessories and what not. Last but not least, you chose the models who will pose with your close and do the catwalk.

Depending on the like or dislike of the fashionistas, the stars and the fashionista, you will start to make money that you can spend on research for new textiles, fabric, processing technologies, styles, models etc. Will finally a Hollywood star appear with one of your outfits at the Oscar Ceremonies?

This week’s game idea is inspired by the brazilian directorGlauber Rocha (I mentioned it first at a thread at the IGDA Forums though). It’s a game about poor kids living in the streets, who are exposed to weather, hunger and violence. Could be a Sims mod actually. Here comes…

Game Idea #39

Hunger

In Hunger, you are in charge of a group of kids who live on the streets. Everyday objects like dustbins or ATM booths have a new meaning to you, since these mean food or shelter. Part of the game is to discover the “hidden” functionalities of all type of everyday objects. The game also supports the establishment of relations with street animals like dogs or cats.

Brazilian film director Glauber Rocha

A primary concern will be to avoid sickness and health problems since these are very difficult to overcome.

Another primary goal is to avoid or prevent violence. For example violence between the members of the group which you control. The violence that occurs ranges from humiliation to forced labor to mutilation. You also need to manage other encounters with potential sources of violence such as parents, mafia, and police or ‘good citizens’ that want ‘this problem’ to be removed from their backyards ‘immediately’.

An in-game reference to games will be the following instance: Since our characters are kids, they love to spend the little bit of money they have on those 8 or 16-bit era games in that rotten arcade around the corner. But their hopes to play one of those games lasts only until the owner of the arcade refuses to sell them coins because he believes that they ‘disturb the peace’ of the kids from the ‘good’ families.

You lose the game when all of the kids under your control are dead or under arrest. In other words, you continue to play only as long as you have at least one free living character.

I’ve been working on a chapter of my thesis that attempts to relate game progression with increase in narrative tension. Since I like to prepare slides and visualize the subject matter, I come up with diagrammes. The slide below is a diagram about game progression, player growth and the impact severeness of player interactions.

Game progression, player growth and impact severness of player interactions.

This weeks game idea has been inspired by a blog entry at22 Over 7 about the Ouroboros. The Ouroboros is a symbol used since the ancient ages and is known as serpent that eats its own tail. The symbol is also used in astrology and said to represent the Milky Way. When you look at the Milky Way from the galactic central point near Sagittaurus, it looks like a serpent which eats its own tail. The name of the game idea I come up with belongs to an astrolabe built during the reign of King Sejong of Korea. This device called Honcheonui (but often abbreviated as Honui) was used to measure the positions of astronomical objects such as sun, moon and planets. It consists of several orbital rings placed into one another. Anyway, here comes…

Game Idea #38

Honui

In Honui, your goal is to make your opponents serpents eat their tails before your serpent has eaten its own tail. The game ends when a players serpent has completely eaten itself. The player whose serpent is the longest will win the game.

Each players start with a shared time concept, however in the process of the game, players will be able to put each other into different concepts of time. As a result, the same events will have different outcomes in regard to the serpents. For some serpents time will flow faster, for others slower, and this will have an impact on how quick the serpents eat their tails. It will also be able to reverse time and recover some of the parts that the serpents had eaten.

Hunoi will be a fun strategy game in which time and timing are the central tactical elements. The master of time will be the master of the universe.